Collapse
by metaphorically-blue
Summary: The old guard is gone. [Plummet, pass, choke, fade.] One by one, they all fall down. [HP7spoilers][Marauder!Oneshot]


Warning/Spoiler: Read Deathly Hallows. Now. Because this talks about Marauder!death. And it only mentions Harry in passing, if at all. Ha ha, no love for the main characters.

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, Neville/Luna would be definite. But it's only vague, which means I don't.

Collapse

They were children, once.

They had been boys, loud and boisterous, haughty and protective, withdrawn and shy. They had lived, with skinned knees and jinxes, with scruffy hair and smudged cheeks. They had thrived, with pranks and smirks and toads in beds. With scabs as marks of glory and a clever joke as a badge of genius.

It wouldn't have lasted, not ever.

(_But what if, what if, what if? What if things had been different, what if things had turned out another way? And the empty words echo in his head, a chorus of lies and wishful fantasies. Maybe, maybe, maybe…_)

They would always grow older. They would always be a little less mischievous, a little more serious (but god forbid they stop laughing). They would begin to blush whenever _girls_ pay attention to them (and eventually, they would relish in it, start to appreciate it, and the old mantra of "_but they have cooties!_" would fade, a phase for the younger, the less immature.)

They would always grow up, grow tall, grow important and majestic and mature.

And then they would collapse.

._and the leader goes out so young, so young._

It was strange but somehow predictable that James would be the first to go.

He had been their ringleader, the charisma, the glue. He had made bonds and acquaintances with ease, the one that others, less confident, would turn too in their hour of need, and being the good-natured boy that he was, he would always assist. It was just how it was, never questioned, always carried out.

He would be one to die protecting. He would be one to die as a gesture, going out in the horrific sort of glory that comes when you try to save someone and forget about yourself.

And as he perished, the three splintered. One escaped, alone, with no one to hide behind, no one to protect him. One was framed, left to go mad with grief in a place where no one could escape anything, even the dead. And one watched, horrified, the sick reality hitting him like a low blow to the stomach.

James plummets.

It wouldn't be long till the rest of them followed.

._as the best friend blazes, fighting, torn._

Logic dictated that Sirius would be next.

After all, Sirius and James had been _best friends_, and somehow, a best friend always follows another, consciously or not.

So of course, Sirius would be the next one. It was almost as if he knew it would happen like that. _First one, then the other_.

Logic also dictated _how_ Sirius would go.

It would be fighting, a blaze of glory and screamed curses, exhilarated until that one curse would hit him dead on in the chest.

Maybe it would be because he wasn't watching. Maybe it would be because he was getting older, his reflexes waning, his eyes not quite sharp enough to spot the slash of a wand and the ray of light that spelled his doom.

Or maybe (_he quiets, and though it sounds not quite right, he knows it is, he knows that this is what happened, this is why Sirius is gone_) he knew it was coming. Maybe he knew that that curse was his end. That it was his demise. And he didn't care.

He didn't care, because his best friend was gone and he couldn't go outside and he just wanted to fade away, to end, to see those who had already left again, one last time.

Sirius passes.

One mourns, and one quivers, because their time is nearing its' end.

._death comes back for the traitor one._

Death hates being cheated.

Thus, Peter's demise was imminent.

After all, purposefully exploding a street (a death wish, to be sure) and then escaping, only to nearly be killed by the men who used to be your best friends, only to escape again?

It's almost like he was asking for it (_but he wouldn't, because cowards like him hide from death instead of taking it like a man_).

It only makes sense that the way he died had to do with that gesture of mercy that saved him four years previously.

It also makes sense that the same one who saved him tried again, but failed.

(_Maybe this means that he was beyond saving, maybe, maybe not._)

Peter chokes.

And the last one waits for what will come for him.

._and the watcher fades, so worn, so worn._

Lupin is the last remnant of that golden age, the last one left standing, so he is ready for it when he dies.

He was always watching, always. Trying to make sense of things, trying to figure out the whats and hows. (_But mostly the whys, always the whys_.)

When he learned of James' death, he mourned. He had been accepted, he had had friends, and it was all because of James.

When he heard that Peter had died, he had spat on the floor. Such men were detestable, and it was strangely a service that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had done to them, to get rid of a man who lied and betrayed his first friends.

When Sirius died, he saw it. He had seen his friend fall through that thin, thin veil that separated him from all those who were gone, and that image had bounced off the walls in his mind, reminding him that he was going to die, and soon.

But his own death is unique in that he was the only one who didn't die alone.

Lily had already gone upstairs with Harry when James collapsed. No one could have fallen through that veil with Sirius. And Peter had died without anyone, because no one really cared for him anymore by the time he was strangled by the silver hand.

But Lupin had died holding his wife's hand, as they faded from the curse that had hit him both, both thinking of their son.

(_Somewhere in his mind, he understands that Snape won't survive this fight, and he realizes slowly that the old guard is gone_)

James plummets.

Sirius passes.

Peter chokes.

Lupin fades.

(_The old guard is gone._)

One by one, they all fall down.

_FIN_

A/N: I wrote this in an hour. …I win at life.

Written as a requiem for the poor old Marauders. Poor fellows. (Except for Wormtail. Rot in hell.) I felt totally depressed when Lupin and Tonks died. (_sniff_) But don't worry, more is coming, because I had a "dead Harry Potter characters" streak and Lupin and Tonks is bad, but Fred is simply unacceptable. (So expect something depressing. Or Fred/Angelina. Or both.)

Review…because I said so.


End file.
